Frozen Four: Notre Dame falls to Denver 6-1
There will be no fairy tale ending for Notre Dame hockey. The Irish season came to a close late Thursday night in the Frozen Four.
The Irish lost to Denver 6-1, in a game the Pioneers dominated from start to finish and a game. Notre Dame could just really never get into it, and after the game, Irish players admitted this one is going to sting for a little bit.
"This is a tough one to swallow. I thought we had a really good second half and we kind of had that bright lights moment in the Boston Garden against Lowell, but I thought we were over that but we have some learning to do and some growing up to do, myself included, today was unacceptable and it's sad to see to see a good team go out on a bad note like that and leave our goalie out to dry and have our seniors Benny and Chad have to go out with a bad taste in their mouth but for us going forward all we can do is learn from it," said sophomore defenseman Dennis Gilbert.
"it kind of (stinks) right now but I think we got to look back on this season and we got a young team and we made it to the final four and we got to be proud of that, we've done some great things, we beat some really good teams,” said junior forward Jake Evans.
"One bad game doesn't define the whole season, especially at the end. It needs to be looked at the big picture you know, that's what we can look at this season and see the growth and maturity we came up with and the fact that we made it here will be a lasting memory more than the outcome of the game”
said junior goaltender Cal Peterson .
It was a tough ending for Peterson, giving up six goals, but his teammates said afterwards they're not blaming him for this loss. In fact, they're commending him for being the rock all season
"Cal makes six, seven, eight great saves to keep us in it and it's tough to ask him to make the 9th and 10th and that's on us. I mean the defensive core and the forwards we got to be better in front of him and in these two games especially we didn't really play hard enough in front of him and it's tough to see a guy who works so hard and deserves it so much and is the rock for us back there all year long have a tough end to his year,” said Gilbert.
"He's the reason we've made it this far and it's evident why he's the captain of our team by the way he plays and not to mention his off-ice actions and how he carries himself. He's a fantastic guy and somebody i look up to and extremely proud of him and everything he's done for our team," said junior forward Anders Bjork.
The loss was a tough pill to swallow for this team but nonetheless a magical season for Notre Dame, a team that wasn’t even supposed to make the NCAA tournament.